Category Archives: Oceans

Scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey have created an
“Earth-as-Art” collection of brilliant images from space, as seen
from Landsat satellites.

Icy Vortex // Image:
USGS, Landsat program

Some pictures of Earth formations are reminiscent of actual
paintings; some include familiar objects; and some are like
abstract creations. Some show the actual colors of earth, sea and
sky, while some of the colors are created with filters to highlight
natural colors or even to capture light beyond the visible
spectrum.

These images remind me of the LIDAR images created by the
Washington Department of Natural Resources, which I called works of
art in a blog post nearly a year ago.
See Water Ways, Dec. 11, 2017. I included images of Puget Sound
among some satellite photos posted previously. See
Water Ways, Sept.11, 2017.

One of the strangest animals on Earth is the emperor penguin, a
bird that exhibits some remarkable behaviors to help it survive
under the harshest conditions.

One might wish that the penguins would fly away to a warmer area
when the frigid cold of winter strikes the Antarctic each year, but
this bird doesn’t fly at all. Instead, groups of penguins huddle
together on open ice during the long winters. They take turns
moving into the middle of the group to escape the worst of the
chill winds and to warm up just a little.

Females lay a single egg and quickly abandon it, leaving the
males to care for the egg while the females go hunting. For up to
two months, the males will balance the egg on their feet, keeping
the egg warm in a feathery “brood pouch.” During this time, the
males will eat nothing while the females travel many miles to the
sea to gorge themselves on fish, squid and krill. When the females
return, they are ready to feed their newborn chicks some of this
partially digested food, while the males are free to go and find
food for themselves.

While these unusual birds can’t fly, their skills under water
are quite amazing — and amusing. Their unique physiology allows
them to dive much deeper than any other water bird, stay under
water for more than 20 minutes, and eventually zoom back to the
surface at an incredible rate, as shown in the first video on this
page.

It is rather amazing to watch live video from a submarine
creeping along along the bottom of the Pacific Ocean off the Oregon
Coast, and I wanted to remind everyone that this is something they
can experience right now via the Nautilus Live webfeed. The live
commentary from the operators can be amusing at times, but I didn’t
want to wait until Monday to let you know what’s going on.

Exploration Vessel Nautilus, with its remotely operated
submarines Hercules and Argus, has been exploring deep-sea vents
off Oregon the past few days, marking the beginning of a six-month
expedition along the West Coast and around Hawaii. The ROVs were
launched Sunday as the weather allowed, and the mother ship is now
moving up the coast. I’ve embedded the video on this page, but more
information and alternate channels are provided on the Nautilus homepage. One can also
send questions to the research team.

Marine geologist Peter Harris, a 1976 graduate of North Kitsap
High School, has been awarded the prestigious Francis P. Shepard
Medal for Sustained Excellence in Marine Geology.

Peter Harris

The annual award, from the Society for Sedimentary Geology,
recognizes Peter’s 30 years of research accomplishments — “from the
polar to the tropical,” as the judges described it — including his
discovery of new coral reefs off Australia.

Also noteworthy is his work documenting the margins of the
Antarctic continent; describing the prehistoric formation of the
Fly River Delta in Papua New Guinea; and explaining changes in the
“Antarctic bottom water,” a dense water mass surrounding
Antarctica. Peter has published more than 100 research papers in
scientific journals.

After an awards ceremony in Salt Lake City, Utah, Peter returned
last week to Kitsap County, where he spoke to me about his current
efforts on upcoming state-of-the-environment report for the United
Nations. He is working on an oceans chapter for the “Sixth Global Environmental
Outlook,” known as GEO-6, which will be used to advance
environmental policies around the world.

“There are so many environmental issues in the ocean,” he told
me, “but we were asked to identify three things that are the most
urgent.”

Taking on the enormous problem of plastic pollution in the
ocean, the European Union is on track to ban single-use items made
of plastic, while communities in Washington state slowly adopt bans
on plastic bags.

The European Commission is targeting specific plastic products
that constitute 70 percent of the items found among marine debris
lost in the sea and along the shoreline. Cotton swabs, plastic
cutlery, plates, drinking cups and straws are among the items that
would be banned outright, because non-plastic alternatives are
available.

The proposal announced this week goes well beyond those items,
however, calling for a 90-percent reduction in plastic drink-bottle
waste, possibly through a deposit system. In addition, plans are
underway for new waste-disposal programs, ongoing cleanups, and
educational efforts designed to reduce the purchase of and
encourage the proper disposal of food containers, plastic wrappers,
cigarette butts, wet wipes, balloons and fishing gear.
Manufacturers of plastic products would help fund those various
programs, according to the proposal.

NOAA’s annual Marine Debris Art Contest continues to attract
creative students able to spread the message about how loose trash
can escape into the ocean and harm sea creatures.

Zilan C., a Michigan
second-grader, was one of 13 winners in this year’s Marine Debris
Art Contest.Image: Courtesy of NOAA

“The ocean is the ocean animals’ home, not a trash can,” writes
Zilan C., a Michigan second-grader who drew the first picture on
this page. “Everyone should keep the debris out of the ocean and
save the ocean animals’ home!”

“Plastics, rubber, paper and other lost or discarded items enter
the ocean and lakes everyday,” said Yufei F., a Michigan fifth
grader who created the second piece. “Everyone can do our part in
reducing and preventing marine debris. We can also join in cleaning
the beach and clean our streets. When everyone takes action, we can
keep our ocean clean.”

After two years of near-record rainfall across the Kitsap
Peninsula, precipitation has returned to a more normal pattern.

Halfway through the water year, which begins in October,
rainfall in Hansville, Silverdale and Holly are all within 10
percent of the average for this time of year, according to weather
instruments managed by Kitsap Public Utility District.

This near-average total for the first half of the year comes
about despite a very wet November, when Hansville broke the
all-time record for precipitation for that month. Since then, the
monthly rainfall numbers have been mostly below average, except for
a wet January when Holly nearly broke the record for that
month.

As we’ve seen time and again, the amount of rainfall decreases
dramatically as one travels from south to north on the Kitsap
Peninsula. That’s the general pattern for all times of the year,
although the amount of precipitation can vary wildly.

Hansville received 25.5 inches for the six months ending April
1, compared to a 28-year average of 23.1 inches for that period.
Last year, the six-month figure was 7 inches higher at 32.5 inches,
and the first half of 2016 went down in the record books with a
total of 37.0 inches.

Silverdale posted 35.1 inches of rain by April 1, compared to a
28-year average of 38.1 inches for this time of year. Last year,
this Central Kitsap area received 51.7 inches by April, and in 2016
the number was 52.3 inches, second only to 1999 with 69.8
inches.

In rainswept Holly, residents experienced 68.7 inches by April
1, compared to a 27-year average of 65.0 inches. By April 1 last
year, Holly was practically swimming with 95.9 inches, driven by
24.0 inches during the month of October 2016 and 21.8 inches the
next month. But nothing compares to the first half of water year
1999, when Holly received 120 inches for the first half of the
year. Following a fairly dry summer, water year 1999 in Holly ended
with 127.5 inches of precipitation.

NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center has projected somewhat
higher-than-average rainfall through the end of this month in the
Pacific Northwest, followed by fairly average conditions going into
summer. Forecasters rely heavily on observations about temperatures
in the Pacific Ocean, which influence a natural cycle known as the
El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO. See video this page.

A very strong El Niño during 2015 and 2016 (associated with the
much-discussed “blob”) shifted into a weak La Niña in 2017.
Conditions have now reversed course again and seem to be headed
toward neutral. La Niñas are generally associated with cooler and
wetter weather for our region of the country, while El Niños
suggest warmer and dryer conditions — although it does not always
turn out that way.

Neutral conditions are expected to arrive by summer, and some
forecasters predict that the warmer El Niño could arrive toward the
end of the water year in September, according to information
released today by
the Climate Prediction Center.

“Some of the computer models are forecasting development of El
Niño by next fall,” noted research scientist Emily Becker in a new
post on the
ENSO Blog, “but there are a number of reasons why we’re not
completely taking the bait right now.

“First, forecasts made this time of year tend to be less
successful,” she continued. “Another reason is that, while elevated
subsurface heat content in the spring sometimes precedes the
development of El Niño in the fall, some recent studies have found
that this relationship has not been very reliable over the past two
decades.”

Researchers observed a warming trend in March among subsurface
waters in the Eastern Pacific. Those waters are expected to rise to
the surface over the next few months to potentially neutralize any
cool surface waters that remain. The outcome is likely to be the
end of the current La Niña and possibly the beginning of a new El
Niño, featuring warmer ocean conditions.

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